I realize this is not necessarily a valid question as the people are involved are likely the ones who can actually solve it, but I’m sure you have ideas and suggestions nontheless.
I realize this is not necessarily a valid question as the people are involved are likely the ones who can actually solve it, but I’m sure you have ideas and suggestions nontheless.
I’ll take a stab at it. Without trying to wish away things that can’t be wished for.
Transition the administration of the contested area (mandatory Palestine basically) over to a secular representative government. With peacekeeping provided by the UN. The secular government should be completely separate from any religion, but have the right to religion as part of the Constitution.
Encourage massive economic integration between the different ethnic populations. There will be civil turmoil for quite a while, but we’re winning slowly, demonstrating the people the future is better together. It’ll probably take two or three generations until things settle down. So we’re looking at an occupying force for 40 to 60 years.
To add legitimacy to this government, they should have a truth and reconciliation panel covering and forgiving all of the crimes of the past, they should objectively, and harshly come down on any land crimes, hate crimes, religious persecution, religious exclusion, that happens inside the country.
One huge problem, is there is a large population of young men, who don’t have any prospects or hope. So any form of stability is going to come from keeping those men occupied, invested in the future. Be that military service, Peace corps service, education, those men have to be occupied. Otherwise it’ll become a recruiting ground for any religious fascist.
That is probably the best solution, but the devil would be in the details. Who would decide on the government? If it is via democratic elections, then the Jews would have a clear majority and could push for policies favoring them. If it is the UN, I believe Muslim nations are the majority and can influence policies to further Arab interests.
Also, it would not take 40-60 years of not just living as one nation, but forced integration. It would require not just living in the same areas but doing something as drastic forcing all marriages to be interfaith. You would need to destroy people’s identities as Jews or Arabs and replace it with a single national identity.
Remember, they were one nation for the last several decades of the 20th century and it just made them more hostile. As we learned in places like Yugoslavia, forcing old enemies to become a single nation sometimes just makes all the hate grow and ferment.
I think if you look at the entire population, the Jewish makeup 4 million, and the Palestinians about 8 million. When you sum up the populations across both countries.
One problem of direct democracies is the tyranny of the majority. So that would have to be addressed here with some sort of representative government, and a strong constitution that doesn’t allow one group to run rough over the other group. It would be the devil in the details, but it’s important.
I don’t think you need to go so far as forcing interfaith marriages. But giving people opportunities to work with each other, live together, trade with each other, humanizing each other. That takes time. It takes time for the people who suffered injustices to die out, basically. You have to integrate the schools, and the educational system, and the opportunities. You have to remove inequality, and maybe over adjust for apartheid, but get representation in media in the politicians, in the judicial system, in the policing system, integrate the military systems.